TUTORS
Senior Tutors:
Helena Buckmayer, Piano, Course Director
Helena is a highly committed teacher, focusing primarily on nurturing young talent. She has been teaching students at Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, St.Mary's Music School, Cambridge University, St Andrew's University, University of Washington, USA, and is a regular course leader. The vast majority of her pupils move on to study at top conservatoires including Conservatoire Amsterdam, Hochschule für Musik Carl Maria von Weber in Dresden, Royal College of Music etc. with many being prizewinners at national and international competitions including Piano Competition in Seville, London Online Piano Competition, Loretto Steinway Competition, Luigi Cerritelli, Paderewski Instrumental, and more. Her main focus in her teaching is to eradicate unwanted tension by developing an awareness from an early age, to enable every pupil to play in an effortless, pain-free way by combining clearly thought-out physical movements with musical expressions and hence allowing uncompromised artistic involvement. Helena has been appointed the Presidency of World Piano Teacher Association- UK-Scotland to share her work expertise further.
As a soloist, recitalist and chamber musician Helena has performed and toured throughout Europe, North America and Japan with several concerts being broadcast on television and radio, playing in venues such as Ulmer Kornhaus, Frankfurter Dom, Schloss Illertissen, Usher Hall, Queen’s Hall, Kobe Concert Hall, Matsue Concert Hall and Hamamatsu Concert Hall. On numerous occasions, her playng has been described as lyrical and poetic (Suddeutsche Zeitung) and having an almost elfin musicality (Broadway) while performing with orchestras such as Wurttembergische Philharmonie, Augsburger Philharmoniker, Sewannee Symphony Orchestra, Collegium Musicum, Orchestra of the Canongait and others conducted by renowned Philip Jordan, Roberto Paternoster, Kenneth Kiesler, Henning Kussel and more. In 2022, she performed Beethoven‘s 4th Piano Concerto in a chamber music setting in Scotland supported by the string staff from Young Chamber Music.
Gina McCormack, Violin (YCM Edinburgh)
Gina is well established as one of Britain’s leading artists, with regular performances as a soloist and chamber musician at venues across the country and abroad. She made her recital debut in London at the Wigmore Hall at the age of 21 and has appeared many times since then in both that hall and at the South Bank Centre, and at venues and Festivals across the country. Gina has performed as soloist with the Hallé and Royal Philharmonic Orchestras, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and the former Bournemouth Sinfonietta. Solo tours abroad have taken her all around Europe, South Africa and South America. She studied with György Pauk and attended masterclasses with Sandor Vegh (at the Salzburg Mozarteum and at Prussia Cove in Cornwall), Dorothy DeLay, Andras Mihaly and Siegmund Nissel (from the Amadeus Quartet). While still a student, she was a prizewinner at the Royal Overseas League Music Competition in London and at the International Young Concert Artists’ Competition in Tunbridge Wells, where she has since returned to serve on the jury.
Gina has over twenty years’ experience as a quartet leader with leading the Sorrel Quartet, with whom she was frequently heard on BBC Radio Three. The quartet made twelve CDs for Chandos Records, of works by Britten, Mendelssohn, Schubert and the complete cycle of Shostakovich quartets. Their Elgar CD was chosen as one of Classic FM’s records of the year and was Editor’s Choice in Gramophone Magazine. The group also recorded John Pickard’s Quartets on the Dutton label. She then led the Maggini Quartet for two years and then the Brodsky Quartet, with a hugely busy concert schedule in the UK and abroad. Highlights were tours of Australia, New Zealand and Mexico.
Gina is well-known as a teacher, having spent 11 years as Professor of Violin at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance (formerly Trinity College of Music) in London, followed by 7 years at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland in Glasgow. She is currently Professor of Violin at the Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester, and also gives regular masterclasses both in the UK and at summer festivals abroad.
Marcus Barcham Stevens, Violin (YA Ardkinglas)
Marcus is Co-Leader of the Britten Sinfonia since 2013, which has included directing the orchestra from the violin. In 2025 he played as soloist with Britten Sinfonia in Arvo Pärt's Fratres for the Arvo Pärt 90th celebrations in Oxford. Marcus was Principal 2nd Violin of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra 2016-2026. He has also led the SCO, including concerts for Maxim Emelyanychev with Steven Isserlis, and has played as soloist with the SCO and violinist Lorenza Borrani in Schnittke's Concerto Grosso, and with Stephanie Gonley in Bach's Concerto for two violins.
Marcus has guest led the Aurora Orchestra, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and the CBSO. He was a member of the Fitzwilliam String Quartet 2013-2020, with whom he recorded CDs of late Schubert and Shostakovich string quartets. Marcus has broadcast as a soloist on BBC Radio 3, and played live in recital on Classic FM. Marcus played Vaughan Williams' The Lark Ascending in Westminster Abbey in 2018 for their centenary commemoration of the end of the 1st World War. He plays in recital with his Scottish pianist wife, Christina Lawrie, and during Covid they put out 30 online concerts together.
Francis Cummings, Violin, String Ensemble (Residency)
Francis Cummings was born in Scotland and studied at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, the Royal Northern College of Music and later completed a post-graduate degree in Musicology at the University of Leeds. As a founding member of the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, he has worked extensively with some of the most eminent conductors and soloists of our generation appearing in festivals throughout Europe, Japan, Australia, and the USA. In the UK he has worked regularly with a number of UK orchestras often as a guest principal and was a member of the Goldberg Ensemble, a group that latterly specialized in contemporary music.
A passionate and committed educator, Francis has held teaching posts at the University of Huddersfield, Chetham’s School of Music in Manchester and the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.
He was Director of Music at St Mary’s Music School in Edinburgh before taking up post as Director of Music for Sistema Scotland where he designed and shaped the curriculum and was instrumental in the founding of children’s orchestras in four Scottish cities.
From 2018-2025, Francis took up the post of Head of Junior Conservatoire at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. He serves on the board of the National Youth Orchestras of Scotland and as a trustee of the Benedetti Foundation.
Kim Vaughan, Cello, Junior Strings
Kim Vaughan is an active chamber musician, founder member of the Benyounes String Quartet and Artistic Director of Quercus Ensemble. She studied cello in Derry and Dublin and in 2000 was awarded the Northern Ireland Young Musician of the Year prize. She continued her studies at the Royal Northern College of Music from 2003, where her teachers included Kim Bak Dinitzen, Emma Ferrand and Gregor Horsch. In 2009 she was a recipient of the Arts Council of Northern Irelands Young Musician’s Platform, which led to concerto performances with the Ulster Orchestra and a recital at the Belfast Festival at Queens, both recorded for BBC Radio Ulster.
Whilst at the RNCM she was a founding member of the Benyounes String Quartet, with whom she studied at the Haute École de Musique in Geneva under Gabor Takacs-Nagy, with the support of the prestigious RPS Julius Isserlis scholarship. Here they won the conservatoire’s most esteemed Prix d’Exellence and went on to win the 2012 1st International Sandor Vegh String Quartet Competition in Budapest and second prize at the 2014 Orlando String Quartet Competition. They have given concerts to critical acclaim across the UK and Europe at venues such as, Wigmore Hall, Purcell Room, King’s Place, Vienna Konzerthaus, St Martin in the Fields, LSO St. Lukes, and the Budapest, Mondsee, Verbier, Gstaad New Year, West Cork Festival, and Aix-en-Provence Festivals. The quartet held the Richard Carne Junior Fellowship at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance for two years and was resident at Bangor University.
Kim plays an English cello made by William Forster from ca. 1770 for which she is grateful for the support of Harriet’s Trust and teaches at St Mary’s Music School and the Erskine Stewart‘s School in Edinburgh.
Andrew Somerville, Saxophone, Woodwind Coordinator
Andrew Somerville pursues a varied career as a saxophonist, teacher, and researcher. His extensive performance experience includes recital, concerto and chamber engagements at Cadogan Hall, St Martin-in-the-Fields, the Southbank Center, Wigmore Hall, and music clubs throughout Scotland. Committed to new music, he has premiered new works for saxophone quartet by Charlotte Bray, Tansy Davies, and Edward McGuire. He has also worked with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Scottish Ballet, and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra. Andrew’s musicological research generates traditional written outputs and research-led artistic practice, and he is pursuing an additional interest in learning and teaching for music higher education through further postgraduate work at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.
Andrew is saxophone lecturer at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland (RCS), and has recently presented masterclasses at Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, St Mary’s Music School, and university music schools across the USA. He previously taught at the University of St Andrews and RCS Junior Conservatoire, and held teaching assistantships while pursuing postgraduate studies at Northwestern University and the University of Illinois. He is also a graduate of the Royal College of Music, Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, and the University of Glasgow, where his studies were generously funded by the Caird Trust, Help Musicians, and the Wingate Foundation. Andrew’s saxophone teachers were Debra Richtmeyer, Frederick Hemke, Kyle Horch, Martin Robertson, and Josef Pacewicz.
Richard Montgomery, Violin/viola, Assistant Tutor
Richard Montgomery is a violinist from Glasgow with a particular passion for chamber music. His formative music education was at St Mary’s Music School where he studied with Andrea Gajic. He then completed his undergraduate degree with a First Class Honours at the Royal Academy of Music, studying with Richard Ireland, artistic director of ChamberStudio. While at the Academy he was awarded the Poulett Scholarship and Regency Prize for excellence. Upon graduating, he spent a year in the Netherlands learning from Yuzuko Horigome before returning to the UK to work at the Purcell School. He is now pursuing a Masters in viola.
Richard performs all across Europe in orchestras, chamber ensembles, and as a soloist. Additionally, he has been coached by some of the world’s finest chamber musicians, including by members of the Doric, Ysaye, and Guarneri string quartets. He brings these insights into his work with talented young musicians, encouraging a spirit of enthusiasm and inquisitiveness towards the chamber repertoire.
Visiting Tutors:
Not all visiting tutors are listed here. Get in touch with us, if your instrument is not listed. Rest assured that you will get specialist tuition on your specific instrument during the week.
Jessica Beeston, Viola
Jessica Beeston has recently returned to Scotland having been based in London and Salzburg. She is in much demand as a chamber musician and plays with ensembles including Hebrides Ensemble, the award winning Nephele Ensemble, and Red Note. She was a member of the Edinburgh Quartet from 2011-14, a mentor for the Mendelssohn on Mull Festival directed by Levon Chilingirian and has taken part in the IMS Prussia Cove and Wye Valley Chamber Music Festivals.
Jessica enjoys period work with the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique directed by John Eliot Gardiner, and freelancing as a guest principal player with orchestras including the London Mozart Players, Britten Sinfonia, the Royal Scottish national Orchestra, and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra. Jessica studied with Thomas Riebl at the Salzburg Mozarteum and graduated with a first class performance degree. She gained much experience in Europe from regular tours and performances with Camerata Salzburg, the Salzburg Chamber Soloists, and as a member of the Giraldi String Quartet.
Katharina Schröter, flute & woodwinds (Residency)
German flautist, Katharina Schröter has won several prizes at national and international competitions, including a special prize at the Händel Competition and first prize at the International Chamber Music Competition in Épinal. She studied with Prof. Gaby Pas-van Riet and Britta Jacobs at the University of Music Saar in Saarbrücken. Supported by several scholarships, she continued her studies in the United States with Prof. Jeanne Baxtresser at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.
Today, Katharina performs regularly with ensembles such as the Munich Symphony Orchestra, the Southwest German Chamber Orchestra, and the Philharmonic Orchestra Freiburg. Alongside her performing career, she teaches at the University of Music Würzburg and leads a successful flute studio. Many of her students have won prizes at national and international competitions and play in renowned youth orchestras. Chamber music is an important part of her work. She performs with her husband, principal percussionist at Theater Freiburg, as Duo ImPuls, and with Prof. Katharina Berrio Quintero (piano) as Duo Gardellino.
Heather Nicoll, Clarinet
Heather Nicoll is a graduate of the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland (RCS), and was appointed Head of Woodwind in 2007. In a diverse performing career as a clarinettist, she has given concerts and recorded with many of Britain’s leading orchestras, and held a principal position with Scottish Ballet for several years. Heather has appeared as concerto soloist on many occasions, making her professional debut with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, and has featured regularly with contemporary and chamber music ensembles. She has played on numerous soundtracks for films, working with composers and recorded with a diverse range of artists such as Bryn Terfel and Joni Mitchell.
Heather gained an MA in Psychology for Musicians (University of Sheffield) and completed a PGDip in Performance Psychology at the University of Edinburgh, exploring the psychology of peak performance in a range of fields including music and sport. In addition, she is a qualified Mindfulness Now teacher, certified by the UK College of Mindfulness Meditation. Heather has adjudicated extensively at regional, national and international festivals and competitions, such as the Yamaha Foundation Awards, BBC Young Musician, National Concert Band Festival & the Norwegian Wind Orchestras Championship in Trondheim. She has also examined, and given masterclasses and workshops at leading Conservatoires in Britain and Europe.
Fraser Kelman, Oboe
Born in Aberdeen, Fraser Kelman was a pupil at St Mary's Music School in Edinburgh before moving to London to study at the Royal Academy of Music and the Royal College of Music. Since graduating in 2009 he has pursued a busy freelance career primarily as an orchestral oboist and has performed with many of the UK's leading ensembles including the English Chamber Orchestra, Philharmonia Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra and Royal Northern Sinfonia.
In 2017, Fraser moved to Edinburgh where he enjoys teaching at St Mary's Music School, George Watson’s College, St George’s School for Girls, and the Junior department of the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland in Glasgow. Parallel to this, he maintains a busy performing career, appearing with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, and the orchestra of Scottish Ballet. He has also worked with the creative learning department of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra to devise and help deliver projects aimed at developing the ensemble skills of young wind players. Fraser also cultivates an interest in chamber music. Recent highlights have included collaborating with the Benyounes Quartet, cellist Kim Vaughan and pianist Sarah Beth Briggs. He also has wide experience as a soloist, previous concerto performances including works by Albinoni, Bach, Haydn, Marcello, Mozart, Strauss, Telemann and Vivaldi. In January 2020 he premiered Tom David Wilson’s Concertante Oboe.
Oliver Hasenzahl, Bassoon, woodwind ensembles (Residency)
A leading German bassoon player, composer, conductor and writer teaching at Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst Stuttgart and leading the woodwind department at the Musikschule Stuttgart. Oliver studied bassoon with Prof. Georg Klütsch and Prof.Sergio Azzolini in Stuttgart while attending masterclasses with Klaus Thunemann, Leonard Hokanson, Lajos Lencses and conducting with Jörg Dobmeier (HMDK Stuttgart), Prof. Felix Hauswirth (MSH Basel) and Isabelle Ruf-Weber (MSH Luzern). Alongside being solo bassoonist with leading German chamber orchestras such as Deutsche Kammerakademie, Philharmonisches Orchester Heidelberg, Stuttgarter Kammerorchester and more, he also leads the Stuttgarter Kammersolisten, an exquisite selection of top woodwind players performing in various chamber music ensembles.
He toured through Europe, South America and Japan and recorded several CDs including with the SWR within the Schwetzinger Festspiele.Since 2006 he has been writing and composing for the Accolade Musikverlag, the leading music edition for bassoon music. He conducts training courses for teachers with his own students and ensembles winning first prizes at the biggest music competitions in Germany such as Jugend musiziert and Tonkünstler-Wettbewerb Baden-Württemberg.
Esther Swift, Harp
Esther Swift explores ritual, connection, isolation, and the natural world in her performance with pedal harp and voice. A prolific, boldly innovative harpist, composer and singer, Esther works across genres as diverse as classical chamber music and free improvisation, and writes for ensembles large and small. Having studied at Edinburgh’s St Mary’s Music School and the Royal Northern College of Music, as well as with harp pioneer Catriona McKay, she has received numerous prestigious commissions and featured in many international collaborations.
Jamie Kenny, Double Bass
Jamie Kenny grew up in Edinburgh where he attended the City of Edinburgh Music School. He completed his undergraduate degree at the Royal College of Music with Thomas Martin, and his postgraduate at the Royal Academy of Music with Duncan McTier and Graham Mitchell. Jamie also spent a year in Manchester taking part in the Halle/RNCM String Leadership Scheme, played as Principal Double Bass in Lorin Maazel's Castleton Festival Orchestra in America, toured extensively with the Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester and furthered his studies with Joel Quarrington at the Orford Musique Academie in Canada.
Jamie has recently been appointed Principal Double Bass of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, and was previously Associate Principal of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra for five years. He has also worked with the London Symphony Orchestra, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Philharmonia, English National Opera, the John Wilson Orchestra, Britten Sinfonia, Hebrides Ensemble and has played as Guest Principal with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Welsh National Opera, Opera North, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, BBC National Orchestra of Wales, BBC Philharmonic and the BBC Symphony Orchestra.